RIGHTS >Turkish policemen say their hands were hurt in beating

Three of the seven policemen who were caught on camera June 20 beating and kicking a man in Istanbul's Fatih district received health reports saying their "hands were hurt," daily Hürriyet reported today.

Police officers Muhammed Mustafa Gülcan, Ahmet Özdemir and Ahmet Güler claimed – despite a video which explicitly showed that they threw Ahmet Koca to the ground and beat him for several minutes – that it was Koca who beat them.

The officers went to Istanbul's Haseki Hospital to receive health reports to support their claims. The health reports said one of the policemen had a "sensitivity in his right hand," another had an "aching right wrist," while the third had "pains in the index and middle fingers of his left hand."

The policemen presented their health reports to prosecutor Ayhan Bedirhan, who is supervising an investigation into the incident.

Bedirhan requested all the paperwork and documents which were prepared after the beating from Fatih police station, as well as the video footage of the beating and the GPS tracks of the police vehicles issued to officers who are suspects in the investigation.

Koca had filed a complaint against the policemen, saying the officers did not take him to a police station after the beating in the street but drove him around in a squad car for hours, beating him the entire time. The GPS tracks would shed light on Koca's claims.

An amateur footage surfaced June 20 showing seven policemen beating Koca on the ground in front of his pregnant relative despite her pleas for them to stop. The footage caused public upheaval and prompted the Interior Ministry launch an investigation into the incident. The seven policemen were removed from duty.